1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to infant liquid feeders, and particularly to feeders that are connected with a line to form a paired tether set. Also, the invention relates to how such tethered sets can be converted to play toys suitable for infant use. One major aspect of the invention is the use of spherical liquid feeder containers which can be converted to a tethered pair of play balls. The tether line for paired feeders has a length that will space liquid filled containers about the same as that of a mother's breasts when tether line is taut.
2. Description of the Related Art
Prior art revealed no direct design as that of subject invention. U.S. Pat. No. 4,346,902 to Warehime, the same person presenting subject invention, has paired tethered ball set with ball spacing from 10" to 20" (25 to 50 cm), with ball diameters ranging from 15/8" to 27/8" (4.2 to 7.4 cm). The prior art ball sets are intended for use by persons over 6 years and did not have any feeder aspects. But it was noted by the inventor that when a ball set was given to an infant, the infant would grasp the balls firmly and usually put one ball to its mouth, suggesting the basic instinct of breast feeding. Another prior art reference is a newspaper article in The Baltimore Sun, page 2, Oct. 7, 1989 (Baltimore, Md., USA), which shows and describes how a pair of breast-feeding bottles are placed in a brassiere-like harness so a father can wear and "breast-feed" an infant. No play/toy aspects are present in this design. Conventional elongated feeding bottles are used singularly and have no obvious play/toy aspects. Also, such bottles can easily slide or fall from area of infant use. Furthermore, such bottles have no suggestion of the mother's breasts. Tethered pair feeders of subject invention offers many features that are lacking in the prior art, in that they do suggest the mother's breasts and will encourage feeding; they can be converted easily to play toys, or one container can be used for feeding and the other for play; tether pair containers tend to stay in place better than conventional containers since one container holds the other back; tethered pair containers can be hung conveniently on frame of crib, carriage or hook. Also, they can help to develop ambidexterity of the infant when it handles the two containers at one time.